At my father’s recent Homecoming Celebration, my brothers and I got so say a few words about Dan “the man”.  Our notes for that is available at the link below.  We are working on getting the video of the full event online as soon as possible.

• The Four Boys On Dan

JibJab’s founders rap…

• youtube.com/watch?v=ArFAapn9yeQ

I was able to help out at a Habitat Blitz day recently at it was a blast!  You get the walls up and roof sheeting on all in one day.  Below is pic of me helping Andrea build a support beam for the porch (future home owner Aldrena sweeping up in the background) near the end of the day. A few more pics follow that.

• Check out the latest here.

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A Meltdown at MSNBC occurred when Joan Walsh asked who would be comparable to Rush on the Left.  It is really best viewed but a partial transcript is below courtesy News Busters.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: …I think it helps us all to say there are extreme voices on the left, there are extreme voices on the right, and it’s our responsibility to call out people, I believe, on our side. JOAN WALSH: Who would you have me call out? I mean who would you say on the left is comparable to Rush and…

SCARBOROUGH: Don’t do it.

MIKA BREZEZINSKI: Mmm-mmm! No thanks, Joan. We’re good. We’re good.

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I love pyTivo but the windows install instructions are getting a spread around for new users… so here’s the best I could bring it together:

1. Download & Install Python 2.x using defaults (3.x doesn’t work) http://www.python.org/download/
2. IF you want to use the photo plugin (requires 32bit Python) install it too http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/index.htm 
3. Download & Use the outdated but setup friendly pyTivo-wmcbrine-2009.03.19-RC1.zip windows installer http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/forum/updated-windows-installer-2009-03-21-t512.html#3957
4. Download the latest .zip version (top right of shortlog) of pyTivo to updated the files from #3 http://repo.or.cz/w/pyTivo/wmcbrine.git
5. Shut down pyTivo if running (may be running as a windows service)
6. Extract the .zip over the existing \Program Files\pyTivo\ (this should overwrite the old files)
7. Grab the latest build of ffmpeg (currently 1.01) from 2nd post in this thread http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/forum/rdian06-s-ffmpeg-builds-t468.html
8. Extract the .zip and overwrite the old ffmpeg.exe in \Program Files\pyTivo\bin\
9. IF you want to be able to push .tivo files grab the special version of tivodecode in this thread http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/forum/tivodecode-support-t831.html
10. Drop tivodecode into \Program Files\pyTivo\bin\.  To use tivodecode you must set your Media Access Key in your pyTivo.conf under the Server section (”tivo_mak”).
11. Add a Windows Firewall exception for UDP 5353 so that Windows won’t block pyTivo’s new zeroconf share announcements.  (The most common reason pyTivo shares don’t show up or disappear from the Now Playing list on the Tivo is firewall blockages)
12. Move the pyTivo.conf file from \Shared Documents\pyTivo\ to \Program Files\pyTivo\
13. Startup pyTivo & enjoy!

rdian06’s Notes: In later wmcbrine versions, the web interface has been restructured. The web admin plugin has been split into two parts: configuration and TivoToGo. Likewise, the Push and TivoToGo interfaces are hidden by default.

• An Admin section is no longer needed in your pyTivo.conf you may remove it.
• To make the TivoToGo web interface visible, you need to add your tivo_mak and togo_path to the Server section of the pyTivo.conf.
• To make the Push web interface visible, you need to add the tivo_username and tivo_password settings to the Server section of your pyTivo.conf.

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A new video that is a homage to the old 8-bit games of yesteryear, shows off some slick new video processing of today’s 64-bit workstations.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcXtT3rZcqg

Often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, it was actually an introduction by William J. H. Boetcker in his 1942 work Lincoln On Limitations.  Many readers wrongly assumed these statements were also from Lincoln.  However the lack of a deceased presidential attribution doesn’t make the statements any less true.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

There are times in life you want to find the longitude and latitude of a known location.  Google maps does everything else well - why not this?  Soon you discover that what was once a feature of GMaps is now gone.  Searching the web brings up a way to center the google map and grab the url and paste it into a javascript and … who has time for all that nonsense???

Here’s the easy way:  Go here and click on the map. Done.

You can even change the default location by clicking the “set” button and bookmarking the new url.
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Today is the day that many have longed for since the announcement of the ifamous iPad! However if you are less than impressed with the XL iPod Touch… I have compiled a pretty complete listing of your other options that are currently -or soon to be- out.

To limit the scope of an otherwise giant listing, I have only compiled slate style (keyboardless) devices with screens of 5 to 12 inches.  If I missed one let me know at staff [at] this domain.com and I’ll add it in.

•  iPad Slate Alternatives  Enjoy!

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While earlier in the debate most liberals vastly preferred the House version of ObamaCare to the Senate debacle, suddenly everything is rosy now that something has actually passed. New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait goes so far as to call it a “masterfully crafted piece of legislation.” Sadly the internet has a longer memory than last night… Let’s look at how liberals viewed the Senate bill back in December.

Markos Moulitsas founder and publisher of the Daily Kos (self proclaimed “the largest progressive community blog in the United States”) tweeted:

Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.

Howard Dean the liberal former DNC Chairman said: Read more

Here’s the listing of everyone that voted for the greatest increase of government size and power in my lifetime: ObamaCare.

• http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll167.xml